


and this blood, this blood, this blood

by theblythe



Series: you go, reggie mantle [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Harry Potter AU, Romance, Sad, Soul Mates AU, honestly this fic doesn't even make sense anymore really, i think, ok yeah sad, ross butler as reggie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 13:04:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11647134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theblythe/pseuds/theblythe
Summary: "Hi," he's seven when he inches his head nearer towards his wrist, as if proximity can cause his voice to perforate through his skin."I'm Reginald. You can call me Reggie. I'm going to be in Slytherin when I grow up - at Hogwarts when I'm eleven. My mother says that whoever you are—" he pauses and lets his thumb pad the crookedly-marked scripts of a loopy M and an ensuing K. It feels like normal skin."—You're special, like how father is special to mother. You're my special person."(aka the hogwarts + soulmates au no one asked for)





	and this blood, this blood, this blood

 

 

 

 

_"And he fell apart_  
_With his broken heart_  
_And this blood, this blood, this blood"_  
  


**GALE SONG -** the lumineers

 

* * *

 

 

 

Reginald Mantle gets the searing pain on his wrist seemingly after he jumps off three flights of stairs like a golden-haired Gryffindor lion — all teeth bared and valiant and powerful. 

 

It hurts. In fact, it hurts so bad that he cries, and Reggie has always been taught to stifle the cries until he's within the bounds of his private quarters.  _Crying in the open is unsettling,_ his mother's voice hounds him, echoing louder and louder in the caves of his head.  _You are the_ heir _of the House of Mantle, show no weakness._

 

But he's just four. And he's got youth dripping all over. So, when his mother scoops him up, cradles the dark-haired young heir of the legendary dyed-green Mantle blood, Victoria rubs the boy's back until his sobs quell up to be sniffles. The motherly instinct tramples the fact that his daredevil stunt is not Slytherin-like at all, and this is the reason her eyes immediately latches onto the fresh mark on his skin.

 

Two letters seal a path. _M.K._

 

-

 

 

"—Of purity and of blood. His magic is electric — staccato of thunder muffled by clouds when he walks in a room.  I felt it when he was a mere babe. Acquiring a soulmate at the youngest of any Mantle age, exquisite. And Merlin has definitely selected the most pure, the most perfect one for him. Our name will taste divine when he comes of age. The dynasty they call Blossom shall falter..."

 

Reggie is five when he softly shuts the heavy, Belladona wood, closing the crack of his father's study before any other word can slip out. 

 

-

 

At six, Archie Andrews gives him an accidental collision on the head during a junior kiddy Quidditch match. Reggie’s pretty sure it’s his own fault, flying on a broom and not looking where he’s supposed to be looking at.

 

Though, twenty minutes after he’s taken to St. Mungo’s on a bewitched stretcher, Fred Andrews from the Ministry slips in, cap in hand. He has Archie next to him, looking severely sorry.

 

Reggie wants them to get out, to not see the mess he’s in. He feels vulnerable. His mother warns them scarily when she thinks Reggie is asleep — that if Archie Andrews ever gets too close for comfort, Fred is on a one-way trip to Azkaban.

 

At a young age, Reggie is taught that he’s invincible with the Mantle name.

 

-

 

"Hi," he's seven when he inches his head nearer towards his wrist, as if proximity can cause his voice to perforate through his skin. 

 

"I'm Reginald. You can call me Reggie. I'm going to be in Slytherin when I grow up - at Hogwarts when I'm eleven. My mother says that whoever you are—" he pauses and lets his thumb pad the crookedly-marked scripts of a loopy  _M_ and an ensuing  _K._ It feels like normal skin.

 

"—You're special, like how father is special to mother. You're  _my_  special person."

 

-

 

Reggie takes tutoring under Madame Patil with several other vapid and wealthy Pure-blood children. Mother has pried the teacher for his year-wide curriculum, so that whenever he gets home, he rattles the spells off and must showcase the lessons he's learned to achieve his mother's approval. He's wished he hadn't shown that bat-boogey hex he got from Chuck Clayton, though, because his mother cursed him off Quidditch time for a week straight.

 

It's at least six and a half hours a day, although there's nothing to brag about learning basic spells and theologies. It's boring, it's dragging — Patil is definitely hotter than most professors, as whispered to him by Chuck when she quips about perfecting wand movements, but Reggie doesn't seem inclined to think of anyone else other than the unknown girl — he  _knows_  it's a girl — who has Reggie's initials inked on her skin like a tattoo. 

 

"Thinking of who it might be?" Betty says when she spots him peering down his open wrist, where the rolled-down sleeve of his shirt should be. 

 

"W-what?" He gruffly sputters, skin reddening, and forcefully pulls his sleeve down to hide the special letters. "Mind your own business, Cooper." 

 

Betty simply smiles with her usual sweet, docile self. A Hufflepuff in the making, no doubt about it.

 

"Come on, it's not like you're the only who'll be having it."

 

Having proof that there's a soul mate out there for you when you're at the age of unawareness is a blessing. It's a person's perfect equal. A match made in heaven. It means that someone, somewhere, is waiting to meet him, and love him for whoever he is. And to think, Reggie already had this knowledge when he was five! It's sweeter than seeing a blank nothingness when you're fifty and working in the Ministry. 

 

This time, she touches her own unblemished skin through the soft material of her pink sweater. "When do you think you'll meet her?... Or him? Is it a she or he? I read somewhere that you just  _know_  if it's a he or she when you get it."

 

Reggie glares at her, "I'm not having this conversation with you, blondie."

 

He stares back down at his sloppy Potion notes, but he thinks of the crooked, loopy scripts he has seen permanently written on his skin every day since he was four. "...And it's a  _she_ , so stop talking."

 

"Woah," the brightness shines in her eyes, "Do you think it'll be romantic, you know, when we'll meet them? Like in the same way Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley met? Do you think it will just be like how my mom and dad saw each other in the Yule ball? Ooh, I hope I look my best when I meet him, or her, though—"

 

"Shut your trap this second, or I'm hexing your hair green 'til Monday, Sabrina Spellman."

 

When the lesson is over, and Reggie comes home to the estate with his hair ruffled and skin dirtied all over from trying to catch that stupid snitch with Archie and Chuck in Madame Patil's vineyard, he ignores his house elf's pleads to get him into the bath and instead, he stares at himself in front of the mirror to eye his dark locks and sweaty skin and Asian features. 

 

People has always said he’s handsome — as princely and regal like Salazar Slytherin had once been. He’s not really sure what that Salazar looked like, but since everyone mentions that to him every once in a while during some soiree, he’s been going with it.

 

Although, when Reggie meets his soul mate, he'll be damn sure to look like he'd just walked out of his mother's favorite issue of Witch Weekly's. 

 

Salazar Slytherin — psh, he won’t be like that old dick. He'll be Mantle the Magnificent. 

 

-

 

 _Slytherin will be a certified path to greatness,_  his father snaps at him when Reggie wonders out why he can't be anywhere else. 

 

 _Shrewd, cunning, handsome,_ his mother whispers as her magic tucks him in for bed _. You’ll look dashing in royal green, my sweetheart._

 

-

 

The whispers doesn’t come for Reggie Mantle when he finally turns eleven and finds himself packed and ready to go for Hogwarts, school of witchcraft and wizardry.

 

His father can’t see him goodbye due to a packed convention for the newspaper, The Daily Prophet, which they own; his mother waves her arm, however, like the windshield wiper he has seen from astounding muggle cars when she takes him to King’s Cross station.

 

He puts himself up and shines off the charm he’s been long since known for, and surely catches everyone off guard. Chuck Clayton fists him back and shows him where the cool kids are — he catches the tiny N.K. inked on Chuck’s wrist. The rest of the first year populace stumble around trying to figure out what to do in this train.

 

The whispers, however —

 

It comes for the shining, third year Jason Blossom when he watches over the aisles with his prefect badge and hair so red that it catches every pair of eyes in his way. The red head is riveting yet silent, mature and golden. Cheryl is nowhere to be seen. But she most likely looked the same, Reggie’s seen the two ginger vultures too many times over the past couple of years.

 

The Blossoms are almost worshipped — in fear. Everyone in the wizarding world practically swears it by heart.

 

A small girl — with curls, ebony and glistening under the lamps, that are almost darker than Reggie’s — accidentally shoulders the very same Blossom in the stomach at the same time she pops out of her compartment across Reggie’s own — shrieking, quite unladylike, for the trolley witch to stop.

 

Aghast, Reggie gapes.

 

If only he can replay the face Jason makes as the girl goes running like a bat out of hell, zipping off like a Hippogriff for the Honeydukes cart.

 

“Sorry!” She apologetically shouts from behind her running self, freaking out as loud as she can, “I didn’t mean it!”

 

“Merlin’s beard.” Jason mouths, bewildered.

 

She’s an outright mess from afar, legs like jelly and almost hitting everyone in the way.

 

Reggie and his friends make fun of the scrawny girl. He smirks while Chuck jeers when the girl comes back to her own compartment, arms heavy with Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bott’s. The only odd thing about it is that the girl simply ignores their heavy teasing. She glances over once, face stoic yet sweet, and shuts the door in a snap.

-

 

“Margaret Steele.”

 

Reggie’s near enough to hear the loony girl correct Professor Longbottom. “It’s Midge, actually.”

 

“Betting on Hufflepuff,” a second year snorts.

 

“No, too plain. This one’s zany, look at those prints,” His friend replies. “A Ravenclaw for me. More like Luna Lovegood — the second.”

 

“I heard this one’s muggle-born,” Reggie finds himself sneering. “How about another Granger, then?”

 

He jeers like some ripened serpent when the girl _do_ gets into Gryffindor.

 

-

 

“Met some weird, _weird_ muggle-born today. My dad was right. Stupid as a sickle. I hope you don’t meet her,” Reggie complains to the M. K. writing on his wrist after he casts an advanced _silencio_ spell around his bed after he finishes an hour of quivering and basically begging the ratty hat to place his Gryffindor ass in Slytherin.

 

-

 

“Soul Mates,” the topic causes the wide classroom to fizzle out its noise in a heartbeat. “Some say it’s a gift from Merlin. Some say it’s a curse.”

 

Reggie tightens his right hand grip on his wrist.

 

In Reggie’s second year, Professor McGonagall, her white hair outwardly extra-tight in a bun, pauses out before gazing in his direction, looking straight at him. “There is no stagnant truth. But what we _do_ know is: a soul mate comes for a reason. They teach you, _and_ you learn.”

 

Reggie gets out her gaze in a second. He demands his attention to the girl unfortunately seated in front of him, and he gives her wooden chair one, harsh kick.

 

“Bet you your soul mate is just dreading to meet you, Midge.” Reggie comments nonchalantly — as if the words carry to her ear like some calming midnight lullaby.

 

Eyes glittering with satisfaction, he watches the Gryffindor freeze in her chair, one hand over her wrist. She clears her throat before craning her neck to glower at him. “Haven’t you got anyone else to bother, Snake?”

 

“No other Mudbood here, babe.”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

He takes pride as he sees her shoulders twitch and tremble. “Go back to where you come from, Mudblood.”

 

-

 

“Surprise, surprise, the muggles try for domination once again. Where is a dark lord when you need one?” Reggie’s father throws a teacup in one of the House-elves’ faces.

 

The dark hue coloring their sitting room is a metaphor for hunger and ambition. It tints their fireplace with a horrible, greenish disposition. For some people, it’s a monstrosity; for Reggie, and quite visceral for him, it’s supposed to be called home.

 

Reggie flinches as his father mumbles, drunk and maddened, to the fireplace.

 

He throws down a copy of _The Daily Prophet_ , the headline clearly shouting: ‘HERMIONE GRANGER: RUNNING FOR MINSTER OF MAGIC’.

 

It burns slowly.

 

-

 

“Do you notice something off about Reggie?” Midge questions Archie while they sit at the Hufflepuff table with Betty a week after they come back to Hogwarts for their third year.

 

Archie wets his lips and gives her a confused stare. “Uh, no. Why? You think he’s changed from being some privileged snake?”

 

Midge stays quiet before shaking her head. Reggie Mantle sits smack middle in a group of his regular sort over at the Slytherin table — he sits among them like a king to his peasants. Though, there is a shift of disposition. A change of texture that wraps his ignorant face about how he grew up hating people like Midge.

 

“Like…” Midge clasps her covered wrist, “Softer. Or something?”

 

She gives a soft laugh when Archie targets a look of indignation. He gulps down the last of his pumpkin juice. “’Ya wake up on the wrong side today?”

 

“No — just… never mind.”

 

-

 

Her hypothesis is proven correct, though, as Midge forcibly bumps into Reggie’s chest when he’s alone on the second floor.

 

Weirdly, he’s standing in front of a ceiling-high painting. He just… stares at it — so, so different from the way he would shout profanities from the Quidditch stands when Archie and the other Gryffindors would practice.

 

Midge takes a sizing look at the painting, but it doesn’t really seem relevant with the man-painting green and silver overtones. The painting doesn’t even move, and yet his eyes warm towards it as if he’s having a conversation.

 

Probably a Slytherin thing, then.

 

Reggie stumbles but lands on his equal footing easily. Midge, on the other hand, not so likely. However, to her surprise, he helps her up soundlessly with one, strong arm.

 

“Watch it, Mudblood,” he whispers so faintly and steps away easily — he probably hoped that Midge hadn’t heard it.

 

-

 

 

Around the last of third year, after Josie skips out on one of Professor Flutesnoot’s potions class to make some tunes with Valerie — Midge is left alone, and agrees to do the work by herself for three whole periods (without failing her and Josie’s grade — Josie the Slytherin swears her mom, the current Head of Muggle Affairs, will kill her if Midge _does_ fail the both of them) — or so she thought.

 

Reggie walks in late in the dark, hallow dungeon with his horrible smirk and a physique that suddenly grew over the summer. Professor Flutesnoot appraises the boy in subject before he tells him to sit down. The Head of the House wasn’t allowed to slip anything bad about the Mantle boy.

 

“And here we are again,” he sighs (petulantly gives her a look), and sits his stuff down next to Midge.

 

Midge refuses to acknowledge his presence. She continues on doodling on the margin of her charms textbook.

 

“Midge.”

 

Nope. No way. Funnily, he’s still standing.

 

“Midge.” Reggie gets closer — his face grumpy like that cat meme she’d seen around Tumblr. The Pure-blood probably hasn’t heard of the internet. “Move your shit.”

 

Oh. Midge swivels to see her stuff all over the second seat. She picks them up with intent, knocking out some ingredients along the way — her cheeks burning in the process.

 

“Before we head over to our specific potion today, let’s take a quick look over our semester selection. Shall we?” Groans came from all over the room. Midge rolls her eyes while Reggie goes to be a major part of the audible bandwagon.

 

As Reggie reaches over the table to pick up his textbook, a slip of his heavily-dark sleeves fall by a miniscule inch that Midge wasn’t even able to see anything except for dark lines.

 

She can’t help herself. “You think she’ll be pretty?” She says this with a mixture of sarcasm and solemnity, to unsettle the feeling of awkwardness shrouding the two whenever they encountered one another.

 

Reggie’s hand bangs into his cauldron. He stays silent, but she can see the sudden flush coming into his face.

 

“I-I am—...A-ah, sorry,” Midge apologizes immediately. “I forget that it’s different here. Funny, right? How witches and wizards are so clammed up about their soul mates like it’s such a nuclear-code type secret.”

 

“You…” Reggie clears his throat. Then looks around, irritable, suddenly self-conscious. “You never mention those things with people you’re not close to,” He narrows his eyes, “Especially to Mud-bloods.”

 

“Okay, now that’s just ridiculous. Everything negative is suddenly associated with Mud-bloods?”

 

“My parents say so,” he answers shortly.

 

“That’s what your parents say! You are not your parents, Reggie.”

 

 

-

 

_You are not your parents, Reggie._

 

In Diagon Alley, he thinks it over while his father gets him three scoops of Strawberry Nutty Caramel and his mother caresses his dark locks in the same way she did when he fell down a flight of stairs when he was a kid.

 

-

 

 

 

“—Azkaban’s far off the coast, Jones. Daddy can’t save you now, pipsqueak,” Reggie corners Jughead Jones in one of the deeper halls of the dungeons — where Professor Flutesnoot can hardly find him, but just in case, Chuck stands guard next to an empty painting. Reggie’s grown at least two inches since the summer between third and fourth year. He’s using it to his advantage.

 

Jughead eyes him back head on like an imbecile hobo he is with his darkish eye-bags and ratty, muggle clothing. His used-to-be, Harry Potter follower of a father is luminescent in the way the boy collectively holds it in a fighting stance. The half-blood is sweet to think he can take on Reggie Mantle, who’s wide-armed and taller and had spells drilled into his head _before_ he can even play Quidditch.

 

Jughead raises an eyebrow. “Your dad _may_ have put my dad behind bars, but he’ll always be better than you fucking dirt Mantle serpents — you Voldemort-crazed zealots. Face it, Reggie. You may have everything, but you’re cursed for life, dude. I _actually_ pity your soul—”

 

Reggie snarls, discards his wand, and throws a punch.

 

-

 

“What if my soul mate is not… _Pure-blood_?” He finally says it out loud. Bare. Raw. Verbal.

 

“Stupid boy,” his father slices his steak in one, swift motion. A bit of blood spits out of the slightly-cooked meat. It stains a green coaster. “Never has that occurred before. Salazar wouldn’t have allowed it.”

 

Still, the possibility is apparent over their scrumptious, divine meal.

 

-

 

“Bro, meet Nancy,” In fifth year, Chuck Clayton calls him over in the middle of the train ride back to Hogwarts. The boy stands in between an opened compartment, and Reggie questions him silently with a cocked head.

 

“Who?” _Nancy_? Who the fuck?

 

A tall, mocha-skinned girl slips out behind Chuck with a spring in her step. She beams at Reggie as if he’s a long-lost friend. “Hey, Reggie. I’m Nancy. Nice to meet you,” Nancy gives out a beautiful, white-teeth smile.

 

She reminds him of a fairy. That ethereal one, those that are whispered by mothers to their children whenever they go to bed. She seems dreadfully different from Chuck, the most opposite of a fairy that Reggie knows. More like the beast to her beauty.

 

“Y-you…” Reggie stammers. Shocked. He looks between the two, knowing looks and the sudden lost swagger of Chuck Clayton that constantly held him up as the captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team. “You’re _N.W_.?”

 

Chuck holds up his wrist, “That’s right.”

 

Reggie feels a whoosh of nausea, before telling them a faint ‘congratulations’. He leaves them be and goes back to his other group of rowdy, unbounded Slytherins.

 

“That fucking loser. He’s so whipped,” Moose, the Gryffindor, crows and at the same looks proud as hell. He swivels in his seat to greet Reggie in. “One day, that’ll be us, dude. Hope mine’s hot as fuck.”

 

Reggie brings up a smirk as a response. The moment Moose looks in another direction, it falls from his face as easy as he makes it.

 

He won’t lie, but he feels a bit empty as he stares outside the moving landscape. When will it be _his_ turn? When will he see pairs of pretty eyes that belong solely to him?

 

Reggie has the patience of a two-year-old. Or a goldfish. Either way, he hates waiting. So. _When_?

 

Tomorrow? The next day after?

 

Or in fifty years?

 

-

 

 

During Christmas, Victoria Mantle sends him a letter, inking out the sad fact that he can’t go home.

 

He stays in his room around the time the train leaves. He puts away the pool of disappointment that stems from the truth that his parents’ are passing him off to McGonagall, because he knows they are busy people.

 

Although, he almost palms his forehead, shocked, when he sees Betty jumping up and down in the Great Hall, exuberant and excited to see him, hand waving for him in greeting. Midge curtly glances at him, but otherwise she ignores him. There’s a sliver of something good about that the fact that people waited for him, but he refuses to accept such feeling.

 

Reggie makes do without his house-elf’s grandiose cooking and says, “This feels fucking weird.”

 

Jughead narrowly avoids his little, surreptitious glance, “Agreed.”

 

On a normal day, Reggie wouldn’t be caught dead hanging with them.

 

“No, this is nice,” Betty counters in her usual sweet way, “We can all bond without thinking of our houses.”

 

 _And blood_ , Reggie thinks uncomfortably when Midge catches his stare.

 

Archie looks at the both of them in between servings of mashed potato, “Quidditch later?”

 

They all nod, even Midge. Moose watches Midge in slight awe when she rattles off fragments of history she’s read off a Quidditch fact book Archie got her for Christmas. Reggie makes sure that his seat is an inch closer to Midge than normal. It squeaks when he shifts it. He doesn’t mean to. Midge eyes him hazardously, waiting for any sort of assault.

 

Reggie feels embarrassed that she actually expected for him to attack her.

 

(Later, Reggie bites his lip, hoping for the compliments to stick to the back of his throat, whenever Midge does an impressive job as a keeper. Instead, he ignores her with a feeling of guilt for some reason.)

 

-

 

 

In the latter part of fifth year, their relationship elevates to _frenemy_.

 

Midge guffaws while she follows him around, “There’s nothing wrong with that expression, moron! It’s quite humor-filled and expressive, thank you very much. I see Wizarding folk don’t teach their kids satire or sarcasm or irony. Gawd, you’re so weird, Mantle.”

 

The smirk falls from his face. Reggie flushes, having no clue what she just spilled out. “I-I d-don’t like you, Gryffin-dork. So fucking stay away,” Reggie grimaces in finality.

 

He ignores the girl who only came nearer as he peruses the shelves for the right book. His essay deadline for Charms is three hours away and he hasn’t even started on it. He doesn’t need Midge to come rolling in with her quirky, oddball statements and act like his personal Luna Lovegood.

 

“You’re one hell of a freak, you know that?” Reggie holds a copy of an old Hogwarts A, “Never can figure out if you’re being serious and when you’re not. Exhibit A: You talk to me out of nowhere with a topic I don’t even understand. Exhibit B: You talk shit when you feel shit, and you try to follow me around like I’m supposed to be your friend. If you have that much time, go look for your fuckin’ soul mate or something.”

 

Midge sighs again, hand on her hip like she’s a mom reprimanding her son. She’s tiny though, so she can’t make him feel that way.

 

“Oh Reggie, you sure know how to make a woman feel appreciated. See you later, then,” she smiles. But it’s not that bright. Not the smile that he knows and has felt. Did he say anything wrong? He looks at his hands and feels pretty dumb.

 

Reggie actually thinks of apologizing, but she’s already off to another direction. When Reggie’s down to a thicker set of books, he hears squeaks of chairs and various volume of voices.

 

“…Seriously have no idea why you still try, Midge. I’d ignore him in a heartbeat. Reggie’s a real oaf —“

 

“And not to mention with a skull as thick as molasses,” Jughead cuts in Archie.

 

Another familiar voice pops in, “But he’s as handsome as Gilderoy Lockhart. And he’s tall. And people say he’s smart and has muscles for days—“

 

“Fuck you, Ginger — Are we even talking about the same guy?”

 

“I heard his daddy uses a quarter of the business profits for his steroid pumps,” Kevin Keller establishes in a hushed but loud enough tone. “Um, not that you heard it from me…”

 

“I’ve known Reggie since I was a kid,” Betty whispers, “But he’s changed a lot, I guess. More loud. More chaotic.”

 

“I think he’s gone off the broom to get on his father’s Death Eater train. He loves that kind of evil shit. He swears by Slytherin. Thought he’ll get into Gryffindor. He’s too brash and too loud for Slytherin.”

 

“His parents probably paid the school in galleons to sort him into Slytherin. Imagine the chaos of Howlers we’ll be hearing if he didn’t.”

 

“Psh, guys, Reggie isn’t that bad. He’s got good jokes and he’s a good Seeker.”

 

Betty speaks slowly, “Archie, his mother _swore_ that Mr. Andrews will be taken to Azkaban if you ever gone near him again. Remember? When Reggie got injured?”

 

“Okay,” Midge interrupts the miniature pandemonium waiting to erupt about him. “Okay, whatever, Reggie has some sort of shifty restraining order on Archie. That was like a bajillion years ago? I’m sure that was just his mom being all crazy Asian Tiger Mom.”

 

“Asian Tiger Mom? Is that some sort of muggle appliance?”

 

“Shut up, Ginger.”

 

“Midge, Reggie _hates_ you because you’re a mudblood.”

 

Reggie holds his breath.

 

“I—“ And it’s the first time he ever hears the girl hesitate. So sure, so definite — _Midge_. “I just, you know — I just think he’s lonely. And maybe, just _maybe_ , he needs a friend.”

 

Midge peers over in his general direction — behind like this really tall rows of shelves and where Reggie’s peering in a tiny crack of books, and Reggie feels his stomach lurch by the fact that Midge knows he’s listening.

 

He cannot control the redness that climbs from his throat to his cheeks. Reggie speeds off.

 

-

 

Reggie thinks it over while he writes his essay back in the Slytherin common room. It’s quiet, yet hardly desolate. Everyone says ‘hi’ whenever they see him, but he’s pretty sure they do it because they’re scared of him. He’s picked on too much first years that he’d already lost count, honestly.

 

Biting his cheek, he mopes with a hand tucked under his chin — his fingers unconsciously sketching a girl hidden behind locks and locks of hair on his essay paper. He snaps out of it, abruptly, when his eyes widen at his fingers. _What the fuck?_

 

(The summer before his fifth year, he sends her a ‘Thank You’ on his favorite black-colored stationary. He’s been saving it since his mother sent it as a gift for Christmas in first year.

 

He sends it. Unsigned, of course.

 

She sends back a vanilla cupcake with colorful sprinkles on it.)

 

-

 

 

Polly Cooper. Jason Blossom.

 

They come back, arms linked, and with a glittering goblin ring attached on Polly’s finger.

 

The thought of Jason Blossom having letters on his skin, too, is a funny thought he had never had the chance to encounter. He’s always seen the twins coming together like one package deal. Now, it seems odd to see Jason’s very opposite — a golden-haired, adorable, and tender Hufflepuff — on his arm, shining brighter than a girl on her wedding day. And also, too odd to see a nonexistent Cheryl beside Jason.

 

It’s also definitely the oddest sight he’s seen all year. Like a vulture with a sheep. _Together_. He should be laughing his ass off, but something about the sight makes his chest hurt.

 

Betty Cooper, Hufflepuff, is proud and a bumblebee. In a state of excitement in the Great Hall, she falls back from her chair and screams as a mark explodes across her wrist.

 

Reggie knows it is _J.J._ before Reggie even chivalrously catches the girl voluntarily in his arms like a muggle fireman saving a falling baby. He’s seen it in the way that Jones kid looks at her. Reggie’s also seen the clear B.C. on Jughead’s wrist, after he had gripped off the boy’s muggle hat in a fight not so long ago.

 

He’s confused, though, when Jughead refuses to confess to Betty even if Reggie corners him about it two days later.

 

“She’s your soul mate,” Reggie punctuates, heat rolling off his words in embarrassment — horrified that he’s actually confronting him about this. He compares Jughead to a bug on the bottom of his shoe. Weirdly indie and annoying and persistent. But still a bug. “It’s literally B.C on your neck. I saw it. You two are destined.” His voice croaks a bit on ‘destined’, like it’s something humiliating to say for him.

 

He sounds like a fucking romance novel Molly Weasley would write. He thinks of the time Betty had asked about his soul mate, so he rolls his eyes at her innocent absurdity.

 

He doesn’t know how else to help the Hufflepuff who helps him with his homework other than doing this. It’s the only way Reggie can think of besides punching him to his wits.

 

“And there’s a million B.C.’s out there in the world,” Jughead echoes, rolling his eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll find her myself, big guy. Get back to Quidditch.”

 

In his own seclusion, Reggie remarks, guffawing to Moose Mason that Jason will definitely be hitting it before they do, and then he goes back to his quarters — fuzzed up and mentally blue.

 

 _She_ will be home one day. He can wait until then.

 

Maybe.

 

-

 

“What is it like, bro?” Reggie questions Jason as blasé as possible when he sees the redhead rubbing his engagement ring like it’s the only thing important. Reggie keeps his face casual, but his insides are jumping for an imminent answer.

 

Jason looks up, surprised to see the normally haughty boy so serious with his question. He smiles coolly as possible.

 

Reggie stares, waiting. Fucking answer, bro.

 

“Indescribable.”

 

-

 

 

Midge is a pain everywhere. She laughs at him when he insults her too-long locks and fat cheeks and too far fashion. She’s different and zany and loopy — doesn’t belong to the wizarding world much like any other mudblood in their year. Although, she is in another category from the rest of those muggle-borns’, because she never ruffles like an ostrich if he wants her to get mad.

 

She never takes the bait, so she spends her days practically untouchable with her arm ironically splattered with verbal remarks from an infuriated Reggie — who’s so used to the cries and scared looks boys and girls would share when they encounter him.

 

She opens her mouth and lets out the weirdest of sayings, mystifying him and amusing him both at the same time. Midge smiles at the way Reggie goes out of his way to grab her ponytail in a mess of immaturity, and she… _she’s_ like the sun. 

 

He's in absolute awe. And also, in absolute fright. Because when he tries to imagine  _her_ — his soul mate, not Midge — he closes his eyes and can't see anything else except for dark curls and Bambi eyes and a beautiful smile that can brighten his dark head for days and days and _days_. 

 

But… Reggie will never wrap the idea of Midge — this girl, this _fucking_ Margaret Steele — being his soul mate around his head…

 

Because the first letter of her surname is fourteen letters away from the truth on Reggie’s skin.

 

-

 

“Met anyone special, dear?” Victoria Mantle whispers, hopeful, when she gets an armful of her too-quickly growing giant of a son. He had just got off the train and looked as dashing as ever.

 

Reggie licks his lower lip and finds himself looking beyond the crowd — he spots dark curls for days and is transfixed as a cat. He thinks of that muggle movie and that line, ‘ _Houston, I think we have a problem.’_ Midge had forced him to watch it in the library with her after he got over the initial displeasure of touching muggle artifacts.

 

“No. No one at all.”

 

He isn’t subtle, not much of a Slytherin trait he has up in his sleeve, so before Reggie knows what it means, Victoria Mantle sees the drawn out look saturating up her son’s innocent face.

 

And there, she knows.

 

She hopes, though, it is the same one as who is written dark and permanent on her son’s skin.

 

-

 

_Thank you for sending that slice of cake. I truly enjoyed the mixture of cheese and the graham. Wishes for your birthday._

_Signed, Reginald Mantle_

-

 

_You don’t sound like a douche when you send letters. You should just act this way in person. I’d like you more._

_Signed, Midge Steele_

-

 

_Damn, so you already do like me. How many percent more until it’s to 100%?_

_Signed, Reggie_

_-_

_Fuck you. It’s barely even 10%._

_Signed, Midge._

_Ps. You should just get a phone, man. I think your owl, Justin, hates me already. He rested in my house and bit my finger when I fed him._

-

 

_Oh. I forgot you were muggle-born. I shall consider such demands._

_Signed, Reggie_

_Ps. He should. We are alike in many ways._

_-_

_See you, Mantle_

_See you, Midge._

 

-

 

The news break out like a disease.

 

Jason Blossom’s dead body wades out of the Black Lake.

 

(Other than that, Veronica Lodge is the new mystery that rolls into Hogwarts.)

 

-

 

Oh. And Reggie’s father turns up dead, too.

 

 

(They treat him — too tender, too soft, afterwards.)

 

-

 

“Yooo, Moose—“

 

“Oh.” Moose glances up at him. Has no idea what to say. “’Sup, Reg, where’s Chuck?” The big guy settles, instead.

 

“Who the fuck knows anymore?” Reggie gives off a lame chuckle, desperately trying to make things as normal as possible.

 

“Woah, hold up.” Moose snaps his head towards the Gryffindor table. “What the hell… Is that Midge Steele?”

 

And it is, Midge. Midge — uncombed, long hair and different and a madcap. _Gone_. In replacement is a girl with shoulder-length waves and sweet, pink lipstick.

 

He’s angry. He’s not sure at which. His father, dead. Or Midge, different. Everything is changing. And he doesn’t want that shit.

 

“Heard from the grapevine that she did a total 360 and became some sort of a beauty queen in the muggle world.” Cheryl speaks briskly, but pleased. How funny is it for her to mention mundane things when her brother is six-feet under. “The Veelas’ _do_ need an extra hand to carry _moi_ for the pyramid.”

 

The others quickly go over Archie Andrews’ sudden change too; It’s something to talk about with Cheryl and her razor eyes that were hidden behind a mourning net for Jason Blossom. Reggie does not talk emotions. He clams up and hates the feeling of invulnerability. Cheryl acts in the same wavelength, but it doesn’t mean that the conversation is not awkward. 

 

Besides Reggie’s in-there-and-over jibes about Andrews’ probable potions use or something, they don’t talk about Reggie’s dad.

 

He prays they never will.

 

-

 

“Hey,” Reggie greets Midge in the middle of a crowded hallway, hand through his styled hair, awkwardly. He towers everyone else. “…Mudblood,” he finishes lamely, looking too off to be egotistical, and too proud to be nice.

 

Midge stops from walking with Betty, Kevin, and the new girl — Veronica Lodge? (The new one side-eyes him but he doesn’t care).

 

“H-how’s your summer?” Reggie sounds from his throat. More touch, Reggie. Less geek, less Suicide Squad (ugh, Midge) and more Mantle the Magnificent. Kevin snorts. Betty glances at him, eyes shimmering. It feels incredibly awkward, and not like him at all, to stop a girl in a middle of a post-class crowd. Because girls come to _him_ , not the other way around.

 

Thankfully, Midge nods slowly. “Uh, good.” Her eyes shift from side to side. “Are you, uh, okay?”

 

That hits him. He tucks his wrist to his pocket and nods. He tries out an expression that’s as mocking as possible and he heaves out air.

 

“…Can I walk you to your next class?”          

 

Right now, he needs a person who’ll make him feel as normal as possible.

 

-

 

His pompous, insufferable self gets thwarted off by a much more beat-up Archie Andrews the duration after his confrontation towards the annoying freak Jughead about Jason Blossom’s murder.

 

(Reggie’s father isn’t mentioned. But it’s so clear over the clouds of Reggie’s sudden anger when he sees Jughead. He’s trying to find someone to blame.)

 

It doesn’t seem much from his oblivious, unkind façade, but he’s deeply affected by the redhead’s death. Jason’s always been kinder to him than most kids — treating him with some sort of respect and exchanging only the most respectable words. It’s probably because he’s older and he knows more. Reggie wasn’t close to him, but he considered him good company. And someone who doesn’t judge (even if he was like some sort of closeted vulture dude).

 

In the hospital ward, Madame Selton shoots him a look of distrust when he asks bad-temperedly for a Skele-Gro. She snaps, telling him to look for her assistant to make some; Professor Flutesnoot’s away on a week-long trip and cannot be bothered.

 

This assistant is Midge and her changed, physical self.

 

He can’t help but pore his eyes over her, a freaky stare that keeps coming back to her like a magnet.

 

Midge swats his cheek off grumpily while she stirs the cauldron counter-clockwise.

 

“Nice change,” Reggie smirks.

 

“Whatever,” Midge shrugs. “That thing with Archie was stupid. Who duels near Nearly Headless Nick’s room? _Everyone_ knows he’s the number one tattle-tale. I’m mind blown at your genius brain, Reg. Damn.  And low. Even for you. _Wait_.” She looks up. “It _is_ exactly like you. Never mind at what I just said.”

 

Reggie frowns. “Fuck. My mom will be pissed.” The lack of _dad_ is present. It leaves an awkward pause.

 

She proceeds to chop more ingredients. “You’re acting weirdly civil after a fight.”

 

“I’m drained, to be honest. Don’t get too comfy, Mudblood.”

 

“Do you miss your dad?”

 

“I don’t want to talk about him,” he quickly shuts her off, annoyance flaring his eyes. Midge gets startled, but she keeps going.

 

“…What’s your mom like?”

 

“What?”

 

“Uh, your mom. I’ve only seen her in The Daily Prophet.”

 

Reggie awkwardly wraps a towel around his knuckles, not used to Midge’s softened tone. “She’s something.”

 

“On the bad to good scale?”

 

“Definitely on the good.”

 

She ruffles her eyebrows, “So why so angry on blood purity? If she’s so good, then why are the Pureblood families so intent on cleaning out the muggle-borns?”

 

Reggie is taken aback by the sudden accusation. Then again, that’s Midge, though — no bridges too shaky to pass.

 

“Um, I can see we have a different meaning on ‘good’.”

 

Rolling her eyes, she says, “Obviously.”

 

“She doesn’t know about you, by the way,” Reggie blurts out. “Like, she doesn’t know I’m… in touch with you. Or any muggle-borns, in fact.”

 

“I’m your only…” She breaks off. “I mean, I’m the only muggle-born you communicate with. I’ve read it, ‘ya know. Researched on that shit. This should be over. This purity thing. Hermione Granger’s running for Minister of Magic. Imagine that? Years ago, she had been _ridiculed_ and _insulted_ for her blood.”

 

“Yeah. I know. My mom is fucking throwing darts at her face at home. She has a picture of Granger in our living room. It’s a pretty sweet hobby for her.”

 

“Shit. Legit?”

 

“No, what the fuck, I’m kidding.”

 

“Oh, sorry,” she laughs lamely. “…What makes me so different, Reggie? Why are you… you know, kinda nice to me?”

 

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not nice to you.”

 

“Sometimes. Okay, sometimes you’re nice to me — like, when you feel like it. Like,” she gets closer. She smells like mint. “Deep in your heart, you know that muggle-borns are just the same as pure-bloods. I mean, who knows,” she steps away and Reggie feels drained. “Your soul mate might not even be a pure-blood?”

 

“Impossible,” Reggie retorts. “Pure-bloods never get anyone _but_ purebloods.” This line feels rehearsed, however.

 

Midge takes up a brow. “Like, never? Ever, ever, ever?” She glances at his covered wrist. Reggie touches it consciously.

 

“Never,” he repeats. “My dad says so.”

 

“That doesn’t make sense.”

 

“Things don’t _have_ to make sense,” he says. “That’s how it always been.”

 

“I don’t get you.”

 

“You don’t have to, Mudblood.”

 

-

 

Reggie feels severely self-conscious as he sits in the infamous table consistently used by Archie and his friends.

 

Midge bites her lip to contain a small smile.

 

(Jughead gets used to Reggie’s snide remarks by the time Reggie joins the Blue & Gold.)

 

-

 

Little by little, things change. You know, between him and the girl he’s used to hate so much.

 

(Reggie begins to love carrying her books around. They fit like jigsaw pieces, for some blatantly odd reason.)

 

-

 

“MIDGE,” Jughead calls up from the steps as the rest of the gang walks about from beneath.

 

Midge sniffles and carries on making conversation with Archie about the silliness that happened with Betty and Veronica during History. She’s pretty pissed with Jughead since he stole her last gummy bear two days ago.

 

“MIDGE. MARGARET. MARGARET STEELE.” Reggie snorts wickedly when Midge persists to ignore the guy.

 

“MIDGE FUCKING KLUMP.” Midge shoots her head up so fast and flips him the bird before Jughead runs off.

 

“Klump?” Reggie narrows his eyes at her.

 

Midge rolls her eyes. “It’s my dad’s surname. He’s not with us anymore, though.”

 

In the corner of her eye, she thinks Reggie pauses at a step. She doesn’t think much of it, though.

 

-

 

The seventh year is quick.

 

Until it isn’t.

 

“Midge, hang on a sec,” Reggie clambers out of the steps to chase the girl running across the halls.

 

“Oh, Reg,” Midge stops, pauses, and tilts her head adorably. Reggie has to clear his throat when a lump forms just by looking at her. “What’s up?”

 

“Um, where are you going?” Reggie asks quickly, hiding the fact that he’s hurt because doesn’t she know that they have this some sort of silent agreement to wait for each other? LIKE ALL THE TIME?

 

Reggie shakes his head internally. No. He’s being selfish. But wait, who cares? Reggie is selfish all the time, it’s practically his trademark. Especially for this girl right here.

 

Who he now knows has the same initials as his the girl on his skin. Holy shit.

 

“Meeting Moose.” Midge says shortly. Eyebrows are pointed down. Her eyes look at him, like duhhh?

 

“What?” Reggie breathes, chest hurting. “Why the fuck are you meeting Moose?” And his tone is sharp, even if he doesn’t mean to.

_Merlin, who is he kidding? Of course he means it._

 

But… But. What the heck. Fricking Midge.

 

“Because, I’m dating him.”

 

Reggie practically feels his heart shatter. Like literally. His chest pounds. He remembers those odd little quotes he reads from the corner of Midge’s potions textbooks and now he understands what it’s meant to actually feel heartbreak. He’s complaining, possibly because he’s never expected to feel it after his father’s death. He thinks he’s already too numb after that. Reggie’s wrong, like always.

 

So. At the last resort, he brandishes out his skin. Desperately, he pulls up the sleeve before Midge turns around to meet with the dude Reggie’s been pals with since first year. _Fucking Moose Mason._

 

“Midge.” Reggie thrusts out, his skin pallor.

 

-

 

Midge can only stare at his skin. Finally, she opens her lips.

 

“I’m-m not — your… soul mate, Reggie,” Midge say this very slowly and very clearly. Reggie lets the cloth fall from his skin.

 

“Then how do you explain what this is,” Reggie blinks down at her plainly. It’s so quiet that you can hear a pin drop. He pulls up the cloth hiding his wrist again and shows her the letters inked on his skin since he was a kid. “Evidently, that’s you. Who else can be M.K. other than you? I — I think I _like_ you, Midge.”

 

She looks at him hard. He knows this look. He’s been given it when he’s saying something stupid or flexing his muscles and Midge tugs on his ear due to annoyance. “…,” she presses the bridge of her nose. “I… I like Moose, Reggie. Okay? You _need_ to understand that.”

 

“Then what’s the whole fucking point of having a soul mate in this fucking world if you’re just going to choose who you’ll be with?!”

 

“Look, Mantle.” She says, “This soul mate thing? It’s whole bullshit. _Everything_ about it.”

 

And suddenly, she presses her wrist onto Reggie’s face. Unclothed and open for him to see.

 

But. He looks closer, takes it into his fingers for any sort of sign. There’s none. It’s blank. It’s practically impossible. Reggie’s never heard of anyone not having a soul mate.

 

And it dawns on Reggie. The reason why Midge Klump doesn’t wait, and rather picked Moose suddenly. Not out of the reason of soul mates, but because she was never given a sign. Is the world that cruel to her? To drop her in a place where everyone had someone, or is _waiting_ for someone. To see everyone have some sort of flame, some sort of hope, that someday — someone will love you.

 

Reggie cannot breathe.

 

“So. All this time.” Reggie takes out of the words. “You. You never had a soul mate?” It ends in a whisper.

 

“No.” Midge smiles sadly.

 

“And Moose?”

 

“Oh, he has one.”

 

“But why—“

 

“Reggie, I’m a road of disappointment. And heartbreak. It’s expected. I expect it. I practically welcome it, arms open. And you? You’re destined for someone else, I’m sure. Someone good. Someone worthy. Someone _pureblood_.”

 

Reggie wants to fist out his hair. No, he cannot do this. He cannot look at her in the eye and tell her that he wants someone else, someone pureblood, because she’s freaking Midge and… and… _and_ … He thinks that maybe, just _maybe_ , he might be in love with her.

 

“No, Midge, that doesn’t even make sense—“

 

“Reggie.”

 

Midge widens her smile just a little bit.

 

There’s something heart-shattering about it. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. I’m a Mudblood. And markless. Just like you said, things don’t have to make sense—It’s just the way it is.”

 

-

 

(That night, his heart breaks once again.

 

It hurts. In fact, it hurts so bad that he cries.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'gale song' by the lumineers.
> 
> cheers everyone who decided to check this fic out. larb you guys (lmao i just watched spiderman:hc and it was the bomb dot com aka new fic coming soon for that hahaha) 
> 
> love shipping reggie and midge even though midge is not even in Riverdale. besides, this is basically my goodbye fic to ross butler who initially played reggie and i even decided to continue watching Riverdale s1. i started this fic earlier this year but never had the chance to finish it. i recently found it and i was like hey let's just finish it because why not. if it feels rushed to you then lol you should know i did the ending in one night and it was pretty sloppy i admit lol. if you care, my fancast for midge klump is julia barretto. just search her up hehe. 
> 
> once again, thank you so much for stopping by! just hit me up on my tumblr: mantlelificent or tumblr: theblythe. either way, that's me. see ya!


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